


the sum of every yesterday

by susiecarter



Category: The Great Wall (2017)
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, Reconciliation, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 08:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19103218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: "The morning as it had passed, the whole day, the day before it," Tovar tries to explain, "it was all—it was unmade. Time ran backward, all at once, instead of forward. When they attacked, with the mist—""I remember it," William says, and again Tovar wants to laugh, wild and useless, and bites his tongue hard to stop it."Ah, but that's just it, amigo," he says instead, when he's able. "You don't."





	the sum of every yesterday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jedibuttercup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/gifts).



> I was so excited to see a request for this movie, and your suggestion for a Groundhog Day loop was way too good to pass up! I just hope you enjoy this, jedibuttercup, and that you've had a lovely NoFM. :D

 

 

They ride away from the Wall.

Even as it happens, Tovar is scarcely able to believe it. He clings to it all, every sensation: the motion of the horse beneath him, the weight of the reins in his hands; the creak and flex of the armor he wears, the heat of the sun on his face, the hills of banded stone opening up before him. The cavalrymen who form their escort, the murmur of their voices and the gleam of their polished helms, and—

And, least believable of all, William. _William_. Riding beside him even now, a lingering smile in the slant of his mouth, whole and hale and—and not even very angry with him.

The day passes like that, lost in a haze. Tovar feels tugged about like—like a magnet, perhaps; on the one hand he's filled with such heady gladness he might as well be drunk. And yet on the other hand it seems all too likely that he'll blink and find it stolen away—that beneath too clumsy a touch, all the scene will shatter, a dream painted on porcelain, and he'll find himself back on the Wall again.

But the sun begins to sink, and still they ride on. No sign of the hill tribes, though the cavalrymen are keeping a sharp watch for them. They ride, and ride, and ride, and at last Tovar begins, cautiously, to believe it is over after all.

When they rein to a halt at last in the dim evening to make camp for the night, he realizes with a start that he is—he has barely spoken all day, has done nothing but ride and gaze around himself like a fool and stare at William.

He does what he can to fix it. Swings down off his horse with a grimace, and makes a joke to William of how little he's missed this, riding all day long through these damned endless hills, as if they hadn't gotten their fill of it on the way here. Takes a look around and finds a flat spot without any stones, and lowers himself down with a lazy sigh; and when William looks at him and asks him, eyebrows raised, how he means to build a campfire without moving—as Tovar knew he would—Tovar raises an eyebrow right back and waves a hand, and says, "Why, it's the simplest thing in the world, amigo. You wait and let a conscientious friend do it for you."

For a little while, he thinks it might have worked. William grins at him, shakes his head and raises his gaze to the heavens as though asking why he's been burdened with such an ass—and then does build a fire anyway, helping the cavalrymen gather tinder and brush from the hillsides. Tovar pretends idleness whenever he feels William's eyes upon him, and spends the rest of his time going through their saddlebags to see how General Lin chose to supply them for their journey; and the answer is "generously". Dried meats and vegetables, spices and salt, will be more than enough to fill their bellies tonight.

By the time the fire is built, Tovar has found a flat stone that can be nudged into the coals for heat with the food laid out upon it, to roast it all evenly. It's good to have a meal; but it's better to have a hot meal.

He only realizes his error when William comes and sits down by him with a quiet sigh, with nothing for either of them to do but wait—no more distractions left.

He feels a moment's foreboding, too late to save him. He looks up, foolishly, and William is looking back at him in a level steady way that says yes, it was all wasted effort, every moment since Tovar dismounted, and he shouldn't have tricked himself into thinking otherwise.

"All right, brother," William says gently, over the crackle and pop of the fire. "Just tell me. Whatever it is—just tell me."

Tovar closes his eyes, resigned.

"You won't believe me," he hears himself say.

"Try me," William offers after a moment, very mild.

"You'll think I'm a madman," Tovar tells him, and then laughs a little, though it isn't funny. " _I_ think I'm a madman."

He risks a glance. William is watching him, and somehow the flicker of firelight renders that familiar face almost strange to Tovar, unknowable, unreadable.

And then William raises an eyebrow, and says, "Who says I don't think that already?"

Tovar laughs again, a huff of breath through his nose, and this time he almost means it.

He lets the silence sit, nudging at the duller coals with a small stick, trying to work out whether—whether he means to speak of it after all, and how he will say it, and whether William will ever stop looking at him in that odd searching way if he doesn't.

And then he opens his mouth, and what comes out of it is, "You remember the night Ballard showed us the black powder."

"Yes," William says. "Yes, of course."

"You wondered," Tovar goes on, "why we hadn't seen it before. What other weapons they possessed that were as mighty, or mightier." He rubs at his mouth; he almost wants to laugh again, but he has a feeling it might come out too honest in its madness, this time. "Ballard told us to pray we never found out—that there would be no need for their use. What you don't know is that there was a need, William. There was."

 

 

(He hadn't known it, at first. How could he?

He remembers it. Some of the rest has slipped, blurred together. But not that. Not that first time. That first time carved itself deep, and Tovar will never forget it.

The day of the mist. That was when it happened. Tovar had woken and had known, just from the way the light fell in the barracks that morning: soft, dreamlike. He hadn't been surprised to look out beyond the Wall and see that strange curving valley brimming over with fog.

The first time, there was no meeting with Envoy Shen—or at least Tovar and William hadn't been invited to it. That would come later. The first time, there was no plan, no harpoons, no yellow potion.

They were ready, armored up, about to leave the barracks to meet with Ballard; but they opened the door into the face of a heavily armed escort, and had been marched up onto the Wall. General Lin wished to see them, or at least that was all Strategist Wang would tell them, and that was when it happened.

The foot soldiers along the wall had those devices of theirs, to listen for the Tao Tei—and the Tao Tei seemed to have known it, for the silence was deafening, unnerving. Every scrape of Tovar's boots against stone sent a shiver up his spine, and he caught himself stepping lightly, trying to make no sound, breath held, heart pounding.

And then, from perhaps three strides away, a Tao Tei roared, and suddenly two men were torn screaming from the walltop, bitten in half.

A dozen more of them had come up over the wall's edge, and just that quickly it was all chaos, orders Tovar couldn't understand being shouted back and forth, the clash of weapons, the shriek of Tao Tei. Tovar grabbed for a dropped pike and met William's eyes, and William had understood that glance, he'd felt sure; this was their chance, if they could only get back down to where Ballard waited.

But they would have to go through the Tao Tei first.

So: they fought.

Tovar had become aware of a strange singing sound, and a rhythm passed up through the stones beneath his feet—much later, he would learn of the swinging blades set into the outer part of the Wall, and the men who controlled them.

But that first time, he hadn't understood what it was; only that it was there, and that it added to the strange unreality of the whole thing: the mist, and the sounds, and these terrible creatures, a nightmare from which Tovar hadn't yet woken.

Little had he known.

He was separated from William, for a time—the Tao Tei moved with such unearthly speed, you couldn't hesitate to throw yourself in whatever direction presented itself to you if you wanted to survive. And it was as he fought his way back in the direction he'd last seen William, past the fallen dead and dying, his borrowed pike in one hand and a sword in the other, that he saw General Lin.

A Tao Tei had her, teeth sunk deep into her chest; but she cried out in defiance, and stabbed it once and then again with the spear in her free hand. Two more soldiers came upon it from behind, then, and it screamed and dropped Lin to the walltop, rounding on its new foes.

Tovar spied a strange glint in its mouth as it swung its head around, yes. But he didn't understand it, not until the Tao Tei lay dead at his feet. That was when he saw it. The medallion, the great golden thing Lin had been given by General Shao at his death, to mark her new office—the chain on which it hung had caught in the Tao Tei's teeth.

He pulled it free, and looked up. And Lin was still alive after all: forcing herself up onto her elbows even as his gaze found her, that brilliant blue armor smeared with blood; crawling toward him, one painful heave at a time, because she could no longer stand.

She looked at it, and then at him, and reached for one of those barbed spears. He'd been sure, for an instant, that she was about to try to kill him for touching it—but it had only been another Tao Tei behind him, and he rolled to the side in time for Lin's blow to catch it in the mouth, which slowed it long enough for him to drive his sword into its eye. And after that—

After that, he couldn't have turned away. Sentimental foolishness, that Lin wished to lay hands again on the medallion before she died; or hoped she might live long enough to pass it to her own successor in person.

But it was the least Tovar could do, and so he did it.

He took it to her, knelt down beside her and eased her onto her back, took her bloodied hands and wrapped them around it, and held them there with his own.

And she looked at him and swallowed once, twice, and said, "The Wall cannot be breached."

He remembers staring down at her, remembers thinking that it must have been—madness, battlefield ramblings, before she slipped away; she couldn't have meant it as order or instruction, she must have known better than to expect any heroism from him. But then she pressed her hand over the jewels, the whole broad gold circle of the medallion, and said something he didn't understand, and—)

 

 

Tovar bites his lip and shakes his head. "It was the medallion," he says, before William can grow too impatient. "The gold, with the five stones?"

"Yes, of course," William says.

"It was—it possessed some vast and ancient magic, or—I don't know what to call it. That's why the general has it, why each one entrusts it only to their successor. Lin used it, and everything was undone."

William stares at him, eyes narrowing. "Undone," he repeats.

"The morning as it had passed, the whole day, the day before it," Tovar tries to explain, "it was all—it was unmade. Time ran backward, all at once, instead of forward. When they attacked, with the mist—"

"I remember it," William says, and again Tovar wants to laugh, wild and useless, and bites his tongue hard to stop it.

"Ah, but that's just it, amigo," he says instead, when he's able. "You don't. You remember it only once, the way it happened last. But it happened many times. Dozens upon dozens. More than I could count," he adds, wry, "even if I took my boots off."

William's looking at him curiously—hoping to guess what it is Tovar wishes to have of him, Tovar thinks, in respond to a lie as vast and strange as this. But at least he hasn't laughed, or told Tovar to stop these games and let him eat. At least he's listening.

"And then what?" William murmurs, after a moment.

"Then we did it again," Tovar says. "Again, and again, and again. And no one remembers any of it, except for General Lin of the Northwest Territory."

"And you."

"And me," Tovar agrees, rueful, shaking his head. "I think it was because I had touched it, you see. When she used it, the very first time—I was touching it. It would be no use to her if she forgot, eh? It would be no use at all. But I was holding it, too. So I remember also."

 

 

(He thought it was all in his mind, at first.

A dream, he told himself, when time began moving forward again. That had worked for a little while; until a day had passed, and a night. Then he woke again, woke and saw the way the soft light fell in the barracks, and his heart was squeezed in his chest.

He thought it was fever. He thought it was madness. He couldn't speak of it—what could he say? What words were there for it? William looked the same, smiled the same, spoke the same words; there was never any confusion or distress darkening his brow. Whatever this was, it had left him untouched. It was only Tovar.

And then, the day before the mist came, something changed: they were summoned by General Lin.

Tovar had not known anything _could_ change. It had all gone about the same for him, planning their escape with William, with Ballard; perhaps he'd been too quiet, hadn't said the same things, but it made no real difference.

This, though? This was new.

Envoy Shen and his battle records—Tovar would be heartily sick of it all, soon, of sitting through Ballard's translation again and again. But the first time he had stared; had listened in wonder, bewildered.

And when it was over—when William had offered his plan, and Lin had agreed to it, though Tovar had paid it little mind at the time—Lin had passed him where he sat at the end of the war-table. And he caught her wrist, and all he could think to say was, "You changed it."

She stared at him, and bid the room empty with a few sharp words; and when it was done, she said, "You remember."

That was when he learned what it was. What she had done, and would do—would do as many times as she had to, as many times as it took, for the Wall must not be breached.

He learned a great deal, after that.

He learned that it didn't matter what he did, or how he did it. Whether he was chained up within the depths of the Wall, screaming curses like a madman, or he stood drenched in green blood and let a Tao Tei rip his head from his shoulders on the walltop—when it was undone, it was all undone. Everything was remade just as it had been, the morning after General Shao's death, and it all began again.)

 

 

"Well," William says, thoughtful, measured. "How did it go, then?"

Tovar tips his hand one way, and then the other. "Sometimes it went well enough," he allows, though of course it never went _well_ —not until the last time. "More often, it went badly," and he does what he can to keep his tone mild, rueful; because William doesn't need to know what it was really like. Tovar can spare him that, even if he's too weak, too selfish, to hold his tongue entirely.

But he must make a mistake, for William frowns at him a little. The expression on his face was amused, before; attentive, intrigued, waiting to see how long Tovar would play this little game out before he gave it up. But now all that is gone, and William only looks grave.

"How badly?"

Tovar smiles at him. The smile doesn't feel right on his face, but he doesn't know what else to do.

"Badly enough," he murmurs, and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. God, if it's really over—what a relief it will be to sleep, and wake to a new morning, one he's never seen before. He laughs a little into his hands at the thought, this very ordinary miracle he's so desperate for; and it is idly, inattentively, just another little joke, that he adds on, "Christ died once, and came back once. I find myself far less impressed by that great work of God's will than I used to be."

And then William has grabbed him by the shoulder, and Tovar blinks and looks up at him.

"You died?"

"Oh, yes," Tovar agrees. "I died, sometimes. _You_ died too, my friend. You died," and for some reason he has to stop and swallow; his throat aches, his eyes burn. "You died many more times than that."

William grips his shoulder tighter. "And came back, I take it," he says, gaze searching upon Tovar's face. "Every time?"

Tovar blows out a breath, and something in him is settled, tentatively, at the reminder. "Yes," he says. "Every time. Though I suppose," he adds, more steadily, "if the hill tribes come upon us now and slice you in two, there will be no help for it."

William's mouth twitches, and Tovar is warmed. But he's still looking at Tovar in that intent way, and Tovar can't help but think—

"Don't tell me you believe this horseshit," he says aloud, heart pounding.

"I'm starting to," William says, without hesitation.

Tovar wants to smile, or perhaps to cry. "Should have known better than to think you'd have the common sense not to."

Their gazes lock for a moment in the dimness; and the sounds of the fire beside them, the cavalrymen in the distance speaking to each other around their own, seem suddenly very far away.

And then William asks, almost gently, "And what did you do when you weren't busy dying, then?"

Tovar shrugs a shoulder, and looks away. "Oh," he says, light, "take your pick. I left, sometimes. I left many times. Alone, the first time. I had no supplies, I wasn't thinking—I wanted only to get _out_ , and if I rode far enough, I thought perhaps—" His voice has become too loud, strained; he makes himself stop, and swallows, and begins again more evenly. "It was never far enough." He laughs a little, and looks up, meets William's eyes again and does manage to smile this time. "I stole some of that yellow potion they gave the Tao Tei, once."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Gave it to you, and you toppled like a felled tree. Tied you to a horse, and rode off. That didn't work either," Tovar confides, though of course if William does believe him, he must already have realized as much. "Tried to talk you into going, of course. It almost worked, a few times. Once—"

And this is when he realizes the mistake he's about to make; that he has cracked himself open too far, much too far, if he could nearly let slip such a thing, unthinking, alongside all these other secrets he is spilling out into William's hands. He chokes on the words, feeling heat bloom unbidden in his face; but no doubt it is invisible to William in the dark.

The silence stretches. He can't break it.

"Once?" William murmurs, leading.

 

 

(Once, Tovar followed William down into the mist without hesitation.

William had already died without him half a dozen times, alone on the far side of the Wall, dragged away by the Tao Tei to feed their queen or blown apart by black powder. Tovar had no longer been able to stand the thought of it—and what did it matter, this once, if he too pretended at heroism for a little while? It would all be wiped away, no doubt. No one would ever know it had happened, except Lin.

Except Lin, and himself.

Once, they weren't angry with each other. They fought together, down there, Lin's screaming arrows whistling about them, as the soldiers worked the windlass far above them, dragging their prize toward the Wall a stride-length at a time.

William was injured anyway, of course, because he was an idiot. But they let Tovar stay with him, as he was looked after—as he lay there, still and pale but _alive_ , and Tovar sat and watched him breathe and was so grateful for it he could hardly bear it.

He never did it again, after that. Even when William was retrieved safely from beyond the Wall, Tovar was careful never to be there for it, never to sit at his bedside waiting.

It was too dangerous.

But that once—he hadn't known it yet, that once. When William woke at last, Tovar was there. He made light of it all, and told William what a fool he was in the most extensive detail; but his hands trembled, pulling William up to stand, and his heart pounded unsteadily in his chest.

When they were safe in the barracks again, and William had seated himself with a sigh so the weight was all off his injured leg—for it had been the leg, that time—he looked at Tovar, and spoke, and his tone was mild and bland. "This isn't the first time I've been wounded in battle, you know."

Tovar was forced to bite down on a laugh. Because of course William had noticed his staring, his helpless attention, and meant to tell him so—but, oh, what a choice of words. How many ways it had already gone wrong, how many more no doubt lay ahead; at least half the time, William was dead by this evening. And he didn't even know it. He didn't even understand how rare this was, what an excruciating miracle it had become.

Tovar squeezed his stinging eyes shut, then, and shook his head. "You're such a fool," he said. "You're the stupidest man I have ever met," and he made himself look up and William was staring at him, wide-eyed.

"Tovar—" he said, and then Tovar had dropped to his knees between William's thighs, pressed his mouth to the swell of William's cock right through the cloth of William's breeches.

William tensed, choked out a startled sound that wasn't quite a word and dug a hand into Tovar's hair. And Tovar was expecting to be encouraged, invited onward with no little haste; what man would turn down easy pleasure?

So he had been surprised, unbearably surprised, to be eased away instead—to have William lean down to him where he knelt, and touch his face, and say his name again in a strange soft way, and kiss him.

He hadn't even thought of such a thing, hadn't imagined it. And if he had, he would have known better than to _do_ it—but then William, for all his virtues, had never had the sense God gave a stone.

William kissed him; and Tovar closed his eyes and let him, though he knew even then he would regret it.)

 

 

"Once, we had another conversation," Tovar says, and doesn't meet William's eyes.

"And it turned out well?"

Tovar digs a knuckle into his eye. The shadow of a headache is creeping up on him, he thinks, but—but the food is nearly hot, by now, and then he will eat it and go to sleep, and none of this will matter. "That kind of conversation never turns out well," he mutters. "Not for me."

William is quiet, mercifully, for a long moment. Tovar takes the opportunity to pluck a piece of meat off the rock—runs it through the flames, quick, just to blacken the edges a little, and pops it in his mouth, and it's roasted fairly well, considering. Not bad at all.

"So," William says, "when you came back for me, after I went over the Wall for that Tao Tei—"

As if he's summoned the moment back to them whole, Tovar feels a echo of the anger that had filled him, the sick heavy dread. "I shouldn't have," he bites out, too sharply. "But—" He stops, and can't help but sigh a soft breath through his nose. "But I knew what would happen if I didn't."

"And telling me," William says, very low, "that I was—what I am. That I could never change it; that I would never be anything."

It isn't a question, except in all the ways it is. Tovar rubs a hand over his face and laughs a little, and the laugh is ragged, bitter. "I would have told you _anything_ ," and it feels only right that the words scrape the way they do, squeezing themselves from his aching throat. "Anything at all, if I thought it would get you to leave that godforsaken place behind. I would have—"

He would have done anything, if he'd thought it might work. He'd have called William far worse, every vile thing he could think of; he'd have struck William, beaten him half to death, lied to him or tricked him or—or fucked him till he couldn't move. But—

But Tovar can admit, if only to himself, that it had been easier to say than it should have been. Because those words, he had wanted to be true.

Because a man who was something, who'd changed himself for the better, who was a good man—what use could that man have for Tovar?

None at all. That man would be better off casting Tovar aside and never looking back; and Tovar didn't want William to be that man.

He still doesn't.

But William was, and is, and perhaps it's time he accepted that.

He makes himself look at William again. He should feel sad, sorry, bitter. But all he can find within himself is a strange quiet resignation. God, he is so tired.

It's even worse now than it used to be, he thinks idly, tracing the lines of William's familiar face through the dark with his eyes. He's wanted William before, now and then; thought of it, idly, on days when he'd spent too long watching the shape of William's shoulders as he aimed his bow, when he'd stared too much at the arch of William's back or the fall of his hair. When he couldn't stop himself—because he had never been a hero, had always known himself for what he was, and indulgence of that kind was perhaps the least of his sins.

But somehow having William, giving in, has only strengthened that useless idiot yearning.

He realizes with a distant start that William hasn't spoken again, or moved—that William is looking back at him thoughtfully, eyes narrowing.

And that, Tovar thinks, is the look of a fool; the look of the stupidest man he has ever met, about to do something very stupid indeed.

"William," he says, hoarse, a warning.

But of course William doesn't heed it. He reaches out and grips Tovar's chin, and Tovar starts to jerk free, but too slow, he's too slow: William's mouth is warm and steady against his, and Tovar has never been accused of selflessness.

He makes a sound against William's lips that he cannot hold in, licks at William's mouth and bites it just the way William likes best—or at least that was what William had confided when he—when they—

William breaks away. "So we _did_ fuck, then," he says, smug, smoothing his thumb along Tovar's cheek.

Tovar blinks at him, opens his mouth and closes it and tries desperately to assemble his scattered mind. "We fucked," he agrees cautiously, after a moment.

"And how was it?"

Tovar manages to scrape together some semblance of a considering expression, desperately ignoring the unhelpful throb of his heart. "Oh—not bad," he says.

William raises an eyebrow. And he's still—he's still much too close, and he hasn't moved his hand. "Surely we can do better than that," he murmurs.

Because of course he's unconcerned with the rest of it, Tovar thinks. Of course he doesn't understand yet.

He stops William with a hand on his chest, before William can lean in again. And he's never been accused of selflessness; but surely this is the least he owes William, after everything.

In the end, the only way he can think to say it is this: "You should have taken the black powder."

William goes still against his hand. For a moment, Tovar thinks he's succeeded. He's made his point, and William has understood it, and that will be the end of it; and in the back of his mind he's already cursing himself for not at least letting William fuck him again first, if there was never going to be any other pleasure to get out of this.

But then William rubs his thumb against the corner of Tovar's mouth, the curve of his lip, and says, "You know, you left something off that list of yours."

"Oh?"

"You were right, of course," William adds. "I am a thief; and a liar, and a killer. But I'm also a very selfish man, when I'm given the chance. Far too selfish to choose what another man might consider wisdom over the thing I want most."

Tovar stares at him.

William looks at him soberly a moment longer—and then grins, wicked in the flickering firelight, and kisses him again. "You should understand that better than anyone," he adds when he's done, tone chastising. "You're even more selfish than I am, my friend."

"Indeed I am," Tovar says slowly, and—

And he's tried, as best he could. But he has never been a hero, and he has never been a man of virtue, and there's only so much protest he can muster, against the advances of a man inclined to make him happy.

Perhaps it will all end badly, still. Perhaps William will regret this, in the end, just as Tovar expects.

But in that case Tovar had better wring all he can get from it. And—and even that, he thinks, feels like a strange kind of freedom: to try, and perhaps to fail, knowing none of it can ever be undone.

"Indeed I am," he says again, more lightly, and softens his hand against William's chest, runs it up to the hollow of William's throat.

The food is probably going to burn, he thinks, only a little regretfully, and leans in to catch William's mouth again.

 

 


End file.
